This invention relates generally to management of data in a computer system, and more specifically to management of data in a computer system such that operating system resource data and application program resource data are combined in a shared object.
In conventional computer systems, operating system (OS) resources that are managed by the OS are defined and maintained in OS private data structures and referred to by application programs using a handle, or other indirect pointer mechanism. A handle is an abstraction that allows a reference to a resource to be used without allowing direct access to the contents of the object representing that resource. The application program can associate (store) this handle with its own resource data related to the operating system resource data in order to better manage operations relating to the application program resource data and the operating system resource data.
The separation of application program and operating system resource data allows the operating system to protect access to its own resource data without having to rely on the application program to protect the resource data. Typically, the operating system has insufficient knowledge of the application program environment to make assumptions of how the application program environment will operate on the data.